Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, paediatrician and entrepreneur Priscilla Chan have just taken steps to give back more to the community, especially to children, by opening a special private school for the communities in East Palo Alto and Belle Haven. Chan will be hands on as the institution's CEO and will lead a team of experienced professionals to run the school in preparation for the its opening in August 2016
The Primary School (TPS), as it has been called, is an integrated health and education system that aims to give children of underprivileged families access to personalized learning and health benefits suited to each child. In order to accomplish this, TPS partnered with Ravenswood Family Health Center to deliver the health-related services needed by the families TPS will support.
"Our mission is to foster each child's well-being as a foundation for academic and life success by drawing on the strengths of the child's entire community including family, educators, medical and mental health providers," the TPS website states.
In order to accomplish their goals, the TPS team is composed of professionals who have been in the education system and are familiar with the communities they intend to reach out to.
This includes President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) Meredith Liu who has worked in urban K-12 schools for more than 10 years and has experience in helping improve underperforming schools, Principal Andrew Elliott-Chandler who taught in district and charter schools for the past 10 years with an additional two years of teaching in an international school in Shanghai.
For the Community relations aspect, Nora Razon will serve as Family and Community Manager given her experience in developing programs for families in East Palo Alto, and the health aspect has Dr. Jessica M. Schumer as the Pediatrician and Health Center Liaison whose passion is on developing and innovating community health systems.
The best part about this private, non-profit school? No tuition fees. All interested families of the "highest need children" have to do is to contact TPS.
This is truly an honorable endeavor and we can only wish the best of luck to Priscilla Chan and her team.
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